Previews

Black

The makers of the Burnout series take their graphics and physics prowess to the action genre.

Spiffy:

Fast-paced action; ridiculous physics and graphics.

Iffy:

Haven's seen enough to see if the game is fun and/or interesting.

Though EA hasn't shown much of this game, it's still one of the most anticipated titles of E3 2005. After all, Criterion dazzled us all with Burnout 3. If you take that game's wonderful physics and beautiful graphics and put it in a shooter, then you pretty much have a good idea of what Black is about. Screw realism and authenticity. Black is about blowing stuff up, causing collateral damage, and laying waste to your enemies.

In Black, you play the part of a super soldier that's engaged in a clandestine war against a group of devious terrorists (as opposed to aloof, amiable terrorists). The story seems like an ancillary feature at this point, but GameSpy will fill you in on future details of Black's narrative. From what I've seen, this "clandestine war against terrorism" is nothing more than excuse to fire your guns. And oh what guns they are.

The developer is putting a huge emphasis on the ordnance in Black. They want guns to be sexy and have personalities. Dirty Harry's gun was used as an example. The devs want each gun to feel distinct, unique, and hotter than Vida Guerra's posterior. They went as far as to say that guns are the star of the show and one of the things they were trying to achieve was "gun porn." I'm not even really sure what that means, but it had me hooked.

To achieve gun porn, the devs went to a shooting range to try out numerous weapons. It was important for them to get a feel of various guns to see how each one is different. More importantly, it gave them a chance to feel each weapon in their hands and to experience what each one feels like. Conveying the personality of each weapon is one of the dev's primary goals.

I was only shown a one-minute trailer for Black, but that was more than enough to get me excited. The game looks phenomenal and seems to be pushing Criterion's Renderware engine to new heights. As expected, the level of interactivity was ridiculously high, and you can shoot up everything on screen. The vibe of the game is decidedly exaggerated. It feels more like Unreal than Rainbow Six. With any luck, Criterion will be able to make Black feel distinct similarly to how it made Burnout 3 one of the most original racing games in years.